Reilly

Blue Willow

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Blue Willow is a China pattern that has been a common thread throughout my life. Both my mother and my paternal grandmother were collectors. The pattern is a beautiful one with a poignant story of eternal love represented in it artwork.

The story represent two young lovers – the daughter of a wealthy man and a man of whom the father did not approve. He forbid the lovers from seeing each other and locked his daughter behind the garden fence. The young lovers eloped, even though she was betrothed to the man her father chose for her. Her father chased after them. As they crossed the bridge, the gods, enamored with their dedication to each other, turned them into doves, so they could be together for eternity.

We ate on blue willow dinner plates almost every night for dinner. My grandmother’s was decorated almost enitirely in blue willow (including a plastic covered blue willow patterned couch and table lamps). Many times during my childhood, I read and re-read Doris Gates’ juvenile book Blue Willow.

I currently have only one piece of blue willow in my home. It’s a teapot that my father bought my mother while they were on their honeymoon. I plan to find the right place for it in the house, and keep my mother’s ashes in it.

Biography of Michael Reilly

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Right now I’m obsessing over my 3rd great grandfather, Michael J. Reilly. He was born in 1846 in Ireland and probably came to the United States with his parents, John and Ann, when he was about 5 years old. They settled in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. He met and married May Ann Ambrose, a native of New Jersey, who was the love of his life. They had seven children, of whom only four survived to adulthood. As an adult, he worked as a sailmaker. Even after his children were adults, he helped raise his grandchildren – my great grandfather Lawrence Ambrose Reilly, and his brother Arlington and sister Madeline. A couple of this children, David and Elizabeth, remained single and lived at home as adults. He died in 1926 in Brooklyn at the age of 80.

The Baldwin Family Mystery

New York Subway Map, CIrca 1918, Library of Congress
New York Subway Map, CIrca 1918, Library of Congress

 

My 2nd great-grandmother Sadie Donnelly Reilly was a nickle-snatcher – a subway token clerk in New York City.  She was raising three children in Brooklyn, the youngest of whom as 2 years old when her husband disappeared.  John Reilly was riding the ferry one day when he allegedly fell overboard.  No body was ever recovered, and he was declared dead, leaving Sadie to raise their children alone.

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The USS Frank E. Evans

Logo, USS Frank E. EvansI write about the USS Frank E Evans with admitted bias – my uncle Larry was one of the seventy-four men lost at sea that fateful night in June 1969, and my beloved grandfather was one of the ones lucky to survive.  The repercussions of the collision of the USS Evans and the HMAS Melbourne have now spanned four generations of Reillys.  I grew up with the accident – it colored many a family occasion.

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Aunt Dotsie
Sister Dorothy Reilly

  • Sister, Aunt, Great-Aunt, Great-great-Aunt, Teacher, Financial Consultant, Social Activist, Mentor, Leader, Friend

    At Aunt Dotsie’s funeral services this weekend, it quickly became apparent that she had touched the lives of many, many people, in a variety of different ways. I learned so much more about her from listening to the stories and talking to the people who had been a part of her life.  She was brillant and fair, loving and devoted. If you came into her circle, you became one of hers – she adopted a sense of responsibility for you.

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